Emmanuel Barthélemy

“Today, practically all that remains of Emmanuel Barthélemy is a dramatic cameo in a chapter of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. But Barthélemy was a real person who participated in two uprisings and a revolution, escaped from prison in France, fought the last duel in England, and perished on the scaffold denying the existence of God. We’ve assembled this collection of materials to fill out the story of his dramatic life. He remains of interest now because of his larger-than-life adventures in the French revolutionary movements of the 19th century. He authored one of the only known accounts from the proletarian side of the barricades of June 1848, which appears in English for the first time here. His quarrels with other radicals, notably including Karl Marx, cast light on struggles that continue to this day.”